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In Sakurai's book chapter 2, he has discussed the diffence between canonical momentum and kenitic momentum under gauge transformatiom. The former should be gauge-dependent, and the latter one would be gauge invariance. What confuses me is that when he try to construct operator that relates the transformed state $|\tilde{\alpha}\rangle$ to original state $|\alpha\rangle$, he requires two things, that the epectation of position and kenitic momentum should be preserved, that is, $$\langle\alpha |x|\alpha\rangle = \langle\tilde{\alpha}|x|\tilde{\alpha}\rangle\tag{2.365a}$$ and $$\langle\alpha |\left(\mathbf{p}-\frac{e\mathbf{A}}{c}\right)|\alpha\rangle = \langle\tilde{\alpha}|\left(\mathbf{p}-\frac{e\tilde{\mathbf{A}}}{c}\right)|\tilde{\alpha}\rangle\tag{2.365b}$$ Under gauge transformation $$\mathbf{A} \rightarrow \tilde{A} = \mathbf{A}+\nabla\Lambda$$ In the R.H.S of (2.365b), I don't know why the canonical momentum isn't $\tilde{\mathbf{p}}$ but still $\mathbf{p}$, that is, why here the canonical momentum seems to be same?


My thought, but I don't know if it is correct. It seems that we can also denote the canonical momentum as $\tilde{p}$, and then compute $\langle\tilde{\alpha}|\tilde{\mathbf{p}}|\tilde{\alpha}\rangle = \langle\alpha|\mathbf{p}|\alpha\rangle+\frac{e\nabla\Lambda}{c}$

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Consider this perspective: the respective classical hamiltonians are

$H_1(q, p) = \frac{1}{2m}(p-A(q))^2, H_2(q, p) = \frac{1}{2m}(p-\tilde{A}(q))^2 $

After canonical quantisation your Hamiltonian will be

$\hat{H}_1 = \frac{1}{2m}(\hat{p}- A(\hat{q}))^2, \; \hat{H}_2 = \frac{1}{2m}(\hat{p}-\tilde{A}(\hat{q}))^2 $

both acting on the identical underlying Hilbert space $\mathcal{H}$, but providing different time evolutions. Now one searches for an operator $\mathscr{G}: \mathcal{H} \to \mathcal{H}$ such that with $|\tilde{\alpha} \rangle := \mathscr{G}|\alpha \rangle$ it holds:

$\forall |\alpha \rangle : \hat{H}_1 |\alpha \rangle = i \frac{d}{dt} |\alpha \rangle \Rightarrow \hat{H}_2 |\tilde{\alpha} \rangle = i \frac{d}{dt} |\tilde{\alpha} \rangle $

So in that sense, the gauge transformation only affects the shape of the potential $A(\hat{q}) \neq \tilde{A}(\hat{q}) $, but not the operators $\hat{q}, \hat{p}$ themselves (in the Schrödinger Picture here).

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  • $\begingroup$ @2000mg Haigo, thanks for your reply; however, I still don't understand what did you mean "the gauge transformation only affects the shape of the potential."? $\endgroup$ Commented Nov 29, 2023 at 0:52
  • $\begingroup$ Maybe a different concrete examples helps: Let $\hat{H}_1 = 1/2 \hat{p}^2 + \hat{x}^2, \hat{H}_2 = 1/2 \hat{p}^2 + \hat{x}^2 + \hat{x}^4 $. In both cases, the operator $\hat{p}, \hat{x}$ are exactly the same, acting on the same Hilbert space etc. However the potential is different and so, the solutions to the respective Schrd. equations are most likely different. But if there were a nice relationship between the solutions to $H_1, H_2$ we would like to introduce $\mathscr{G}$ to relate the two solutions (In your problem it turns out to be that such G exists). $\endgroup$ Commented Nov 29, 2023 at 14:48
  • $\begingroup$ I see! Many thanks! $\endgroup$ Commented Nov 30, 2023 at 2:02

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